A S H R I E L

The word choose is still ringing in my skull when she looks at me like I’m something she can’t stand to touch.  I want to tell her it’s not what she thinks, that I didn’t ask for this, but my throat burns every time I try. The Oath won’t let me lie, and it sure as hell doesn’t make it easy to speak, either.

A crack of thunder hits the glass above us, dust shakes from the rafters, the lights flicker and go dark except for the stormlight bleeding through the windowpanes. Her hair catches it, black turning silver at the edges.

“We should go,” I say, but she’s still staring at the page like it’s going to finish the story for her. When she finally moves, she moves fast, she grabs the folio, shoves it shut, and walks out before I can find the words that don’t sound like betrayal. I followed her into the hall and the air felt thinner there,  the kind of silence that waits for a confession.

She doesn’t look at me as we walk, she just keeps her arms tight across her chest, the folio clutched there like its an armor.

“Elle—”

“Don’t.” The word comes out sharp enough to cut. Thunder rolls again, wind punches through the broken window at the end of the corridor, carrying rain and whispers that sound like voices and my name in a dozen wrong tongues.

She stops when she hears them too. “You feel it, don’t you?” Her voice cracks on the last word. “You always do, you knew before I did, before any of this. So tell me what you are.”

I could stay silent and pretend ignorance, and let the storm swallow the rest. That’s what I’ve done for years, watch, guard and hide, but her eyes are shaking now, not from fear but from wanting the truth, and she deserves that much, even if it breaks everything.

The Oath burns under my skin, the sigil on my hand lighting faint blue through the glove. The pain spreads like wildfire up my wrist, across my ribs, right into the space behind my heart. It’s the cost of truth, the price her mother made sure I’d pay.

I close my eyes. “You should hate me for it,” I whisper. “But I can’t let you walk out of here not knowing.”

She turns toward me then, slow, eyes rimmed red, lashes wet. “Then say it, say whatever you’ve been hiding.”

My pulse feels wrong, too heavy, too human, I’ve said my name before, centuries ago, before Thalia found me in the dark, but this time it feels different, like dragging a buried thing into daylight.

“My name,” I manage, breath shaking, “is Ashriel Duskborne.” The storm hits the windows hard, like the world itself flinched.

Elle’s fingers tighten around the folio. “That’s not the name in the registry,” she says, voice small.

“No.” I take one step closer. “That name died with the body I used to have.”

Something flickers across her face, fear, awe, maybe both. The wind rushes through the corridor again, colder this time, carrying whispers that twist the sound of my name until it almost sounds like a vow. The frost on the floor spreads in slow motion, curling around our shoes, thin and perfect. She watches it climb toward her like it’s proof of what she already knows.

She whispers my name once, quiet but sure. “Ashriel.”

The sound of it breaks something open in me. The Oath shifts, like chains loosening and I exhale for what feels like the first time in years.

She’s still looking at me like she’s trying to decide if I’m real or just another lie built by this cursed place. I almost wish I could lie, tell her she’s wrong, but her mother made sure I can’t.

“Thalia,” I start, and her head jerks up at the name. “Your mother found me before the Rift took her. She.. she did something no Seer should’ve done.” The Oath burns hotter now.

“She bound me,” I force out. “Not as punishment, but as protection. My life for yours.” Elle stares at me, silent, and I see it hit her in stages, the disbelief, the hurt, the horror.

“She tied you to me,” she says slowly, like if she says it wrong, the world will tilt again.

I nod once. “If you die, I will go with you. If something tears you apart, it tears through me first. That’s what she wanted.” The wind shrieks down the corridor, whipping her scarf around her neck and the overhead lights flicker, then blink out one by one.

Her voice is soft, broken. “That’s not protection. That’s a curse.”

“Maybe both,” I say. “But it keeps you breathing, and it keeps the Rift from claiming you, so long as I’m still here.”

The truth settles between us, heavy as storm air and the frost doesn’t move this time. It listens.

A low hum crawls up through the floor, the kind that isn’t sound but vibration, like the whole academy’s pulse just synced to ours. The stormlight flickers white-blue, then everything dims, for a second, it feels like the world forgets to breathe. Whispers fill the space we leave open, soft, endless, familiar. I can pick out a few words if I try. Bound. Keeper. Chosen.

Elle clutches her scarf tighter, backing into the wall. “It’s answering you.”

“No,” I say, though it comes out rough. “It’s answering us.”

Rain hits the window hard enough to crack the frost across the glass. Her reflection in it stutters, two of her, one fading a heartbeat slower than the other. I step closer before the Rift can decide which version to keep. My hand almost reaches her shoulder, then stops an inch away.

“Every time you ask for the truth, it listens,” I tell her. “The Rift feeds on vows, on anything that sounds like love or faith. So be careful what you ask me to promise.”

Her eyes flick up to mine, they’re wet, but steady. “Then don’t make promises, just tell me if any of this was ever a choice.”

That silence that follows.. yeah, the Rift feeds on that too. Lightning cuts through the glass again, and for one long second the frost spirals glow like veins across the walls. The whispers stop and the world exhales.

Her breathing slows, matching the storm’s rhythm. She looks smaller suddenly, like the weight of what she just learned took something out of her.

“You said if I die, you go with me.” Her voice shakes. “So what happens if you… stop?” I almost laugh, but it comes out hollow. “Then the bond breaks, and the Rift gets what it wants. It wins.”

She swallows hard. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” I say. “It’s not.”

The corridor’s cold enough now that our breath clouds between us, one fog curling into another until it’s impossible to tell whose is whose. She steps closer, not enough to touch, just close enough that I can feel the heat off her skin. It’s the only warmth left in the hall.

“Was any of this ever real?” she asks.

I shake my head, then stop halfway. “It’s real every time I look at you,” I admit. “That’s the problem.” Her eyes shine like she might cry again, but she doesn’t. She just stares up at me, waiting.

I reach up, slow, fingers brushing the air beside her cheek, close enough to feel the static. “Every heartbeat I hear, I know it’s yours, and I shouldn’t, but I do.”

Her breath catches. “Then it’s not love, it’s a chain.”

“Maybe,” I whisper. “But it’s a chain I’d choose again.”

Something in the frost shifts, soft, almost merciful. The wind outside drops, a heartbeat of silence between thunder. She’s still staring at me when the footsteps echo from the far end of the corridor. I know that sound, Luke’s voice calling her name, slicing through the calm like another kind of storm.

“Elle?”

The sound of his voice hits harder than the thunder, she spins toward it, eyes wide, every emotion she just buried coming back up at once. Luke stands at the far end of the hall, rain dripping off his hoodie, breath clouding the air. His gaze flicks from her to me, then down to the frost spiraling around our feet. He takes it in, the distance between us, the cold, the kind of silence that only happens after something important. I see it happen in real time, the way his face folds into confusion, then hurt.

“Luke..” she starts, but I cut in before she can lie for both of us.

“She deserves to know,” I say quietly, the words scraping my throat raw. “Your mother tied me to you. I am..”

The Oath burns, forcing me to pause, choking the last words out in pieces.
“Tied… to you.”

The storm swells as if it heard me, the wind shoves through the broken windows, making the hallway lights flicker sideways. He doesn’t hear the rest, the why or the because, but just that one brutal truth hanging in the air like a curse.

He turns away first, no shout, no question, just the smallest shake of his head before he walks off into the stormlight bleeding down the hall. Elle takes a step after him, but the frost lashes up between us, thin, sharp lines crossing the floor like barbed wire. She stops short, sucking in a sharp breath

“Don’t,” I say, voice lower than the thunder. “He needs to believe what he heard. It’ll keep him alive a little longer.”

Her eyes snap back to mine. “You can’t mean that.” I don’t answer, because maybe I don’t know if I do.

The corridor goes still again except for the hum, faint now, like a dying heartbeat under stone. The storm outside mirrors it, softening into rain. In the shattered window behind her, lightning flashes one more time and for half a second, I see all three of us reflected there. Elle. Luke halfway down the hall and Me in the middle in the shadows, but only two reflections breathe.

The wind slips through the cracks and whispers the same word that’s been haunting us since the beginning.

Choose.

The lights blink out. Frost creeps higher, locking the whole hallway in silence.